Revenge of the Red Tories -- & -- Not Fit to Investigate, Nor to Print

The revenge of the Red Tories

If you don't parrot the Liberal or NDP line on social values, then you are simply too redneck to govern. So sayeth a small parade of Red Tories. I suppose the handwriting was on the wall when Jean Charest, the leader of the two person PC rump, jumped ship and became the Quebec leader of the Liberal party. Then we had the spectacle of Scott Brison switching sides. The fact that he actually ran for the combined Conservative party leadership seems to be easily forgotten. But Brison was small potatoes compared to Joe Clark, the resurrected leader after Charest. When he was put back in his cryrpt by Harper and Mackay, Joe's final schtick was "Vote for the Liberals!" Wow! Isn't that loyalty to a political ideology?

Belinda Stronach is simply the latest Red Tory to come out of the closet. She will discover soon enough that the knife she used to stab her party in the back, will be turned on her by the Liberals, once they no longer need her. Ms. Robillard must be fuming that her portfolio has so quickly been turned over to the neophyte Stronach, who has contributed nothing to the Liberals. One can only hope that the electorate will understand her lack of principles. But then the BC voters gave 33 seats to the leftist / socialist NDP. Obviously, the Canadian voter has the memory of a gnat, so who knows. Today we will see where Cadman and Kilgour stand.

© Bud Talkinghorn




All the news that's fit to print

According to David Frum, the Ottawa press gallery thinks there are many Liberal scandals that are not fit to print. I have been frustrated by the lack of inquiry into the $2 billion dollar HRDC scandal. Surely the waste and/or outright theft of such vast sums of taxpayers' dollars warrants press investigation.

In his National Post column (Tuesday, May 17) Frum states that the Press gallery are ideologically joined at the hip with the Liberals they are reporting on. He finds it almost amusing that they nitpick on Harper's "warmth", or his hairdo, while letting massive government fraud slide by unnoticed. As Frum says, "The political reporters, editors and commentators live in an ideological cocoon back in Toronto, where they see abortion and gay marriage issues as Canadians' paramount concerns. Where were these supposedly eagle-eyed reporters during the ten year run of the sponsorship program? Why did it take the Gomery Inquiry to uncover what was wide-open mismanagement and outright chicanery?

A perfect example of this studied neglect was seen in how CBC and The Globe and Mail handled Sheila Fraser's latest revelation that almost $800 million in Liberal ad spending is suspect; chicanery is not limited just to the $250 million in the Adscam deals. Obviously, the liberal / Liberal media is frightened that highlighting this would further harm the LIberal Party, so they have essentially buried it.

Comparisons with such stellar news sources as Russia's Pravda and Isvestia would be apt. Thank God for the National Post, for without it we would get only the socialist, ultraliberal viewpoint, which conspires to keep the Liberals in power in perpetuity.

© Bud Talkinghorn

Comment:

Well, the National Post has some good journalists, Bud, but David Asper's defence of the way things are in it today was part and parcel of the problem. He / his business interests kicked $100,000 into Paul Martin's campaign. Surely, we are not to see the Aspers as unbiased? Then, what is the overall result with their paper? Despite the good journalists, there has not been digging into the sponsorship scandal over the years . . . . nor into the PWGSC and other departments. What about the gun registry? Et cetera.

No news gathering and analyzing organization should be connected to receiving government advertising $$$, nor should its owners be contributing to or in any way be associated with supporting a political party. There might be a way around this if a newspaper openly declared its political bias. As it is, the bias is there, but unacknowledged.

How else are we to get investigative journalism . . . . rather than government press releases and fawning articles from the mainstream media. NJC

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